Often, products within an assembly have inputs and outputs that need to be connected via cable, pipe, tubing, etc. Additionally, those connections often have to be routed through the assembly in particular ways, depending on the preferences of the end user of the item. Collecting user preferences, configuring connectivity options, and determining connection media necessary to accommodate those connections increases accuracy of the quote and completeness of the design. Users that are not intimately familiar with the technical details of the components involved in the assembly may inefficiently spend time determining the connections for the assembly. Even experienced users may spend a great amount of time due to the number of connections involved in some systems.
Existing solutions either lack spatial awareness of the products being configured or have no concept of the inputs and outputs of the system and simply overlook these inputs. Connections and connection media are often determined at assembly or after purchase leading to increased cost. Other design tools are capable of representing connectivity routes, but require significant skill and education by the end user. These programs lose efficiency by not limiting user choices in helpful ways or automatically generating a connection parts list that may be utilized to calculate the total cost of an assembly.